


don’t have the heart to break it

by Legendaerie



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, More tags to follow, Trans Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 09:15:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28348995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: Years after leaving (escaping) from the same small town to different colleges, Felix and Sylvain find each other again.—-Guilty, and duty, and debt.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 12
Kudos: 34





	don’t have the heart to break it

**Author's Note:**

  * For [harriet_vane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/harriet_vane/gifts).



> Been working on this for a while under the title of “Brocery shopping” - hope it’s a fun read~

Being hungover is not a black and white, on and off sort of thing. Sometimes a hangover is a little bit of stomach upset or exhaustion the next day, sometimes it’s a headache, sometimes a migraine.

And then there are the hangovers that are so bad that you walk twelves blocks to the grocery store to buy Pedialite and Aleve because you’re not sure where you parked your car last night and if you don’t get some fluid back in you on the way home you’re going to implode.

Sylvain is not having a very good Saturday morning.

He likes to think he’s the attractive kind of messy when he shuffles into the local grocer; ginger hair a mix of broken spikes and bedhead fluff, eyes edged with black from last night’s flick of eyeliner that melted into a smoky shade, the irregular starburst of cum on his black shirt from where last night’s partner (partners? There were three other people in that apartment who were still asleep when he left) had cleaned herself up after some enthusiastic sex. The only thing affecting his grunge look were the bright red Crocs on his feet he’s “borrowing” because his sneakers were still damp with puke, and even then he could pass them off as ‘ironic’ if he tried.

The way the other shoppers are looking at him, though, say that he looks as bad as he feels. Yikes. He runs his tongue over his teeth and covertly breathes into his elbow in the produce aisle, checking his breath. It’s terrible. Thank god it’s so early in the morning, there’s no way anyone he knows will—

“ _Sylvain_?”

“Oh, fuck,” he croaks, throat sore and voice cracking under the strain of being used. Definitely gave a blowjob last night, too. Shame he doesn’t remember that part. “Yeah?”

He turns and for the briefest moment swear he’s staring at a ghost. A short, lithe ghost with sharp features and long black hair in a pinned-up twist, eyes coming up to Sylvain’s chin. But the ghost is frowning instead of smiling, and his eyes are reddish brown instead of blue.

“Felix?” he asks. “It’s— it’s you?” 

The man’s expression locks down into something tight, hard and furious for a second, then he tsks under his breath and glances away. The line of his jaw stands out proud and attractive with the tension of the muscles there, and when he looks back it’s from the corner of his eye.

Sylvain hasn’t seen Felix since he graduated their high school three years ago, the first of their little foursome to leave Faerghus and move on to better things. Felix was never big on social media, and Sylvain was never big on visiting home on breaks, so he wasn’t prepared to see his childhood friend like this.

Especially not when Felix was supposed to be attending a different college and Sylvain might still be drunk from last night’s concert.

“It’s me,” is all Felix says, but it’s with all the effort and resentment of dragging a full, leaking trashbag to the curb.

“Are you visiting someone on campus?” Sylvain asks, trying to fake a better reason to be surprised with most of his brain cells dead from last night’s after party and the rest of them dehydrated.

It doesn’t go over well. “I’m attending,” he grits. “Transferred from Faergus State University over a month ago.”

“Ah,” Sylvain says. He really needs to get something to drink before he actually stops being able to ambulate, but instead what he says is “do you wanna shop with me?”

Felix looks somewhat horrified. “Why would I want to do that?”

“I dunno,” and he gestures to the store around them, “sometimes I like shopping with friends.”

“You’re _shopping_ ,” he says, and gives Sylvain an exaggerated once over. “You look like the walking dead.”

“Grateful Dead, actually,” Sylvain says, latching on to the first joke that occurs to him, “though they were just the opening act and a tribute band.”

“Uh huh.”

Felix’s eyes flick over him again. “You look—“

“Hot?”

“Really miserable.”

Sylvain agrees, but forces a smile. “That wasn’t a _no_.”

Felix’s expression flattens out, but it’s a little warmer than it was before. “Did you drive here?”

“Nah. I walked.”

“Of course you did,” he mutters under his breath, shaking his head. “Insatiable. Get what you came for,” Felix continues, stepping forward, “and I’ll drive you home before you drop dead. Not that you wouldn’t deserve some consequences for your irresponsible behavior for once.”

Sylvain grins and drapes himself over Felix in a hug. “You’re the best,” he gushes, and receives a vicious shove in response.

“Don’t _touch_ me,” Felix snaps, but keeps a reasonable pace throughout the store that Sylvain doesn’t get left behind.

Felix, however, has his own errands to run first. He continues shopping through the produce, examining peppers and carrots with intense prejudice. Sylvain picks up a bundle of something green and leafy and throws it in Felix’s cart, leaning over it like a walker and shuffling behind his once best friend.

Felix has gotten taller. Broader in the shoulders and jaw, with muscular calves and thighs Sylvain watches flex under his tight jeans.

“What?”

“Just making sure I don’t run into your heels,” Sylvain lies.

The next aisle is juice and soda, and Sylvain snatches a bottle of sports drink from the shelf and opens it. Sports cap, nice. Might be able to reuse it for drinking vodka in class.

He gets a few sips in before Felix slaps him in the shoulder.

“Don’t _do that_ , that’s _stealing.”_

“Sorry, _Ingrid,”_ Sylvain replies, “but you took so long with the produce I was ready to start licking water off the spinach. I’m _thirsty_. I’m _hungover_. Stop _yelling_.”

“I’ll yell if I want, you are _breaking the law!”_

Like that’s ever going to stop Sylvain from doing something he wants. “I’ll pay for it, you big baby. Sheesh.”

Felix yanks the cart out from under him, pivots it dramatically around on one wheel, and proceeds to ram it into Sylvain’s side.

“Go buy it _now_ , you dipshit, or I’m rescinding my offer.”

That gets him moving. That and the cold, unforgiving steel whacking him in the ankles at every step - and the shopping cart he uses for a weapon.

* * *

So.

Felix has changed a lot since he saw him last.

Receipt for two Gatorades and a Pedialite shoved in his back pocket, Sylvain follows Felix to the parking lot. The rattle of shopping cart wheels on rough asphalt drowns out any sort of conversation they might have had, if Felix was even in the mood to do so. In the interest of not having to walk home - a feat that would almost certainly cause him to vomit at least twice on the thirty five minute trip - Sylvain keeps his mouth shut and just watches. Trying to find little relics of the tender, dedicated little brother he left behind.

They’re not related, but they grew up in the same neighborhood; their families and businesses entwined with each other too complicated to ever untangle. Maybe it’s just those old ties that make Felix let Sylvain into the car while he loads the trunk up with his groceries. Business. Obligation. Guilt and duty and debt.

The man that buckles himself into the driver’s seat feels more like a stranger than the people Sylvain hooked up with last night, no matter whose ghost he looks like.

“I like the car,” Sylvain says once they’re on the road and it’s less likely for him to be thrown out. It’s a terrible car. Probably made when Sylvain was in elementary school, with dark red upholstery and polished wood-look paneling.

“Seems nice and…” he scrambles for something positive, “practical.”

“Hm.”

“Probably gets good mileage.”

“Twenty two to the gallon. Eighteen in the city.”

Sylvain winces and abandons the attempt entirely. “Can I ask what brings you to Garreg Mach after a year at Faergus State?”

Felix doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “You can.”

“... So, why’d you transfer?”

“Not telling.”

Okay, that one was a little funny. Sylvain chuckles and rests his head against the back of his seat, rolling his head to the side to grin at Felix. “You can be such a little shit, you know that?”

Felix flips on his hazard lights and starts to pull over.

“Hey, hey, hey! I wasn’t _complaining_. I was observing.”

The hazard lights turn off. Felix checks both side and rear view mirrors before pulling back onto the road. 

Sylvain sighs and resigns himself to silence, studying Felix’s features. They’re familiar, sure - he’d know Felix blind just by running his fingers over that narrow, sharp nose (and probably being bitten for his troubles, while his hands are near that mouth) - the person wearing them...

The Felix from his childhood barely took his eyes off Sylvain, except to stare at his brother Glenn or their mutual friend Dimitri. This one hasn’t looked at Sylvain since they checked out. 

He regrets leaving Felix behind with their families in the state they were in when he came to Garreg Mach. It would have killed him to remain, of course, but still. 

Guilt and duty and debt.

“I’m glad you’re here,” is what he says in leiu of a too-honest apology, and gets a little huff of disapproval in response.

“You’re just happy you get a free ride.”

“What,” Sylvain says, “can't it be both?”

Felix doesn’t respond for another block. Sylvain doesn’t push it, waiting patiently to be met in the middle.

At the next stop sign, Felix flips on his turn signal, leaning forward to check both ways twice. The signal ticks like a time bomb, counting down in double time.

“I’m going to drop off my stuff first,” he says, turning down a familiar road, “and then I’ll take you home.”

Huh. “I think we live pretty close,” Sylvain comments, counting all the apartments he walks past on his way in to campus.

“Convenient.”

“Like, _really_ close.”

They pull onto Sylvain’s road and Felix flips on his turn signal again. Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick, it announces, as he pulls into the parking lot.

Sylvain bites his tongue. “Want some help carrying your stuff in?” he asks as Felix steps out of the car.

“Make yourself useful,” he says, and shuts the car door.

Sylvain waits patiently for Felix to let him in, follows him up the stairs like an obedient shadow to the third floor. Apartment 11’s door is unlocked and only then does Felix stop to look at him with suspicion.

“You’re being rather helpful.”

He shrugs. “Seemed only right, since you’re driving me home and all.”

The Felix of his childhood would have swallowed that line, hook and sinker. This one narrows his rust-brown eyes and glares.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing! Nothing at all,” and he offers his brightest grin, lets it beam at Felix for an ineffectual second before his eyes darken and he lets the other shoe drop.

“Just trying to be neighborly and all, since I live in apartment number 7. Right. Below. You.”

There is a very, very satisfactory pause. Felix stares at him with dawning horror - then with a flurry of movement and a furious rustle of plastic bags yanked out of Sylvain’s hands, he ducks inside his apartment and slams the door.

In the silence that follows, Sylvain is pretty sure he heard something fall over and break.

“See you around, Felix,” he calls as he walks away. Probably sooner rather than later.

After all, he has Felix’s laundry detergent.

* * *

* * *

* * *

  
  
When Felix’s phone buzzes on his walk home from class, he has to cup his hand over the display to read the name in the bright sunlight.

**CALLING: Rodrigue**

He ignores the call, brushes his bangs out of his face, and keeps walking.

It’s Friday - finally - and he is looking forward to a very rousing evening of cleaning his kitchen, changing the water for the betta fish Annette had guilted him into rescuing from Walmart, and doing his laundry. But first, he has to get his detergent back from Sylvain because while he probably could go back and get another bottle he won’t give the asshole the satisfaction.

His sense of direction isn’t great, but he’s fairly confident he is standing directly underneath his apartment when he beats on the door. It’s answered rather quickly by a girl with bleached white hair who can’t be older than 18. 

Whatever smoldering feelings Sylvain might have fanned in him last weekend is immediately snuffed out. 

“Can I assist you?” she asks when he doesn’t immediately speak, frowning. “I’m a little busy.”

He’ll _bet_ she is. “I need to see Sylvain.”

“Who?”

Felix grinds his teeth. “The redhead who probably just had his hands up your shirt.”

The young woman’s mouth drops open in shock. “ _Excuse_ me?” 

“I’m not judging, I don’t _care—_ “ Felix clears his throat and lowers his voice to a neutral tone, “I just need my detergent. Then you can go back to being _busy_.”

She gapes at him for another long minute, then she draws in a deep breath.

“You. Have.” Each word drops between them with the destructive weight of a bowling ball. “The. Wrong. Apartment.”

And the door is slammed in his face.

Felix stares at the plain white door, decorated with an empty wreath hook and a metal number 6, and feels his soul leave his body.

From down the hall comes the sound of cackling laughter.

He doesn’t want to look. He already knows whose voice that is; who has the audacity to have a laugh that matches his stupid fucking face and think that Felix’s suffering is funny.

He looks.

“I was looking for my laundry detergent, you thief,” he declares. 

Sylvain, eating Flaming Hot Cheetos out of the bag with chopsticks, only grins more as he lounges in his own apartment doorway. “I figured.”

“Did you hold my Tide hostage so you would see me again?” 

“Yep.”

Years ago, he would have swooned at that admission. This Felix is not so easily flustered, and makes a show of rolling his eyes.

“Give it to me, then.”

Sylvain raises an eyebrow. “So soon? I assumed you’d at least want a man to wine and dine you a little. Or at least attempt to keep up with your crazy workout regimen.”

“You know what I meant,” Felix hisses, crossing the hall before anyone else hears their conversation. “It’s laundry day. I need it.”

“You _need_ it, huh?”

Felix crosses his arms and stares. 

Several seconds pass.

Sylvain heaves the most dramatic of sighs and reaches behind him to open his apartment door. “Okay, okay, I’ll get your damn Tide.”

There’s still a little smile in the corner of his mouth as he turns to enter the apartment, and Felix swallows before following him in.

It’s… cleaner than Felix expected. No women’s panties strewn everywhere, no used condoms; it’s not the den of filth that Sylvain himself described wistfully when they’d crawl out on the roof of his garage to drink in high school. It’s normal.

“This is your place?”

“I know, I know. No condoms.” Sylvain is already in his bedroom, rummaging for something just around the corner. “They’re too nasty to accidentally step on, so I don’t leave them out.”

“Ah,” Felix says eloquently, eyeing the couch. Should he sit? He doesn’t want to, because he’s still kind of mad at Sylvain for— 

“I heard about Dimitri.”

Ah. “Ah,” he says again, gritting his teeth and bracing himself for the discussion. He doesn’t want to talk about it, not when the memory is still raw.

To his surprise, no additional questions come. Just Sylvain from around the corner, a laundry hamper in his hands and two bottles of detergent sitting on top of all of the clothes.

Felix blinks at him.

“What? I can’t join you?” Sylvain asks. He looks surprised and— a little disappointed.

“It’s not that. I’m just,” he gestures, trying to find the words, “surprised.”

His childhood friend glances to the side, frowns a little, then looks back.

“About?”

“You own a laundry hamper, Sylvain.”

A ginger eyebrow raises.

Felix gestures more. “Come on. Irresponsible bachelor Sylvain, doing his own laundry? Owning a hamper?”

“I’m still those things,” he says, pouting and walking past Felix. “I just got really good at getting cum out of my sheets, and it made sense to be able to look like an adult while doing it.”

Felix follows him, shaking his head. “I feel like I barely know you any more,” he mutters.

Sylvain throws him a smile over his shoulder, brown eyes catching the late evening sunlight through the windows of the outside door. 

“Then I guess you’ve got a chance to get to know me again now, right? C’mon. Go get your laundry and I’ll show you which of the machines actually work.”

The wink he adds almost ruins the effect.

Almost.

Felix shakes his head and follows after a moment to recover, swallowing as he looks away.

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, willing his emotions back down into the heels of his shoes where they belong; where he can grind them out with every step, find satisfaction in the anger and the self-punishment as once. Sylvain left. Sylvain abandoned them. He needs to do more than smile at Felix to be forgiven for that.

The chink-clink of coins in the washing machine brings him back to earth.

“Surprised I hadn’t seen you yet. I assume you transferred in at the start of the year, right?”

“In August,” Felix confirms, sorting out his laundry on the bench. He has a lot of jeans and very little of anything else. Maybe some of his shirts are dark enough to wash with the denim?

“We’ve been neighbors a whole month,” Sylvain gushes, “and I’ve never seen you come in or out?”

“I study,” he answers, trying to keep his replies short to discourage the conversation, checking the pockets on all of his pants. “I’m taking 18 credit hours.”

Sylvain whistles, low and musical and annoyingly in-tune. The sound is beautiful and Felix hates it. “Good luck.”

There’s a space in the conversation for Felix to ask about Sylvain. It’s been years, after all.

Felix throws a few more shirts into his dark clothes load and tosses them in the washing machine. The slam of the lid is loud in the silence, and from the corner of Felix’s eye he watches Sylvain’s shoulders flinch.

Guilt sours his expression, and he shoves his quarters in the coin slot. “I’m going back to study,” he grits.

“Oh. All right. I’ll see you in an hour or so, then.”

Felix doesn’t look back. He doesn’t study, either, or look at his phone except to check the time and burn down the minutes until it’s been too long for Sylvain to still be there waiting for him like he used to; always the last to go home from school or play dates, lingering like fog on a cold morning and just as difficult to parse. He had to find out from _Ingrid_ what was going on at Sylvain’s house behind closed doors because the only expression Sylvain ever made was that stupid, empty-eyed grin.

Three hours and forty minutes later, Felix gets up from his desk and goes to the door, fearing mildewed denim more than memories, and finds a folded heap of clean laundry at his doorstep. Perched on top, a note with a phone number and a little cartoon smile.

Felix crumples up the note and flings it into the trash can.


End file.
